DIY Liquid Hand Soap

DIY Liquid Hand Soap is an easy thing to make and has a lot of advantages. For starters, it’s very frugal! I make my own soap (For Recipes, go Here), so there is very little cost to one or two bars. It ends up being tons cheaper than buying it from the store. That’s for sure! It’s also super easy to make your own. Not to mention the pure, non-toxic, smell how you want advantage!

It’s also a wonderful thing to have with little kids. It’s a luxury that I like, because it seems to be cleaner than the dirty soap bars that I find sitting in the sink (if you have little kids you’ll know what I mean).

The first thing I learned when trying to make liquid hand soap is to not use Castile (olive oil) soap. The reason for this is that Castile soap is extremely soft and will make a very watery hand soap. That is fine, but most people like to have a hand soap that’s a bit thicker.

Second, the temperature of your home makes a big difference. If your soap is too watery, let it set in a cool place for 2 weeks and check again. Mine almost always takes a week for the soap molecules to bind and make a nice thick soap.

Third, you can use less soap bars. It will be, just a lot thinner. I like to use four bars for a thicker hand soap.

found this blog on the juggling real food for real life link up and I LOVE it. We love making our own detergent and I’ve been looking for a recipe for handsoap. Bookmarking this page. Thanks for posting!

I’m having a real hard time with store bought liquid soap lately because it seems to irritate my skin. Love this great alternative! Thanks so much for the easy solution.
Visiting from Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop – have a great Monday.

I really need to try this, thanks for the straightforward instructions! Thank you for sharing with the Clever Chicks Blog hop, I’ll be featuring you, so please feel free to grab my Featured Button! Have a great week!

I made a batch of your crockpot soap (wonderful), and used those for this recipe… The consistency is rather watery, no matter how many times I go back and add more soap to it – it gets more concentrated. But doesn’t thicken. It lathered well from the beginning, just watery…any suggestions?

I’ve read that adding glycerine can give the soap a slimy texture… I did add about 1.5 tbsp the first time, 1.25 when I went back and added more soap – this did not seem to make any difference whatsoever. The soap is absolutely perfect in every other way: it lathers great, is rich, feels nice and smells nice – just super watery (and very concentrated, now that I’ve added so much of the bars to it) . I’m not even sure now how to dilute it, and how much glycerin to add at a time. I really don’t want to ruin this batch…my husband is already completely unsupportive, and feels I’m wasting money (even though I’ve presented the money-saving, more healthy, less waste arguments and demonstrated the good bars…)
Any suggestions on how I should go about diluting my liquid solution, and how much glycerin I should add? I could provide more specifics, if you’d like -just let me know.

Mishell,
I’m not sure exactly why yours is staying so watery….It never does get as thick as store bought because it doesn’t have the same thickeners, but it should thicken more than what you are experiencing. What I would suggest is to heat it in a large pot, double the amount of water (so if you have one gallon, add one more). When warm and combined well, pour into two gallon jugs and seal.
THEN, get a cheap soap dispenser that foams, dump the soap in it, or use it if your husband would rather you to 😉 and use it from now on with your homemade soap. It will foam and seem “thick” to those not used to thinner hand soap.
I hope that is a workable solution.

Thanks so much to all of you for your help 🙂 I’m working on diluting my solution, now, adding water and glycerin…we’ll see how it comes out.
I understand it’s kind of a trial and error process when you’re first starting out in soapmaking 🙂
I’ll let you know how it goes!

You can add water. The consistency will vary depending on what soap bar you use. I used a beer soap with juniper berry once and it was like elementary way the molecules connected to one another. But every other bar I’ve used has been thinner, but perfect. Heat it if you need to and add a little water to thin it out if needed.

First, thank you for this extremely easy recipe. I noted that there is no glycerin in the recipe, yet many comments mention it. Did you forget to add it in the recipe, or is it just something you guess at the amount?

I’ve been successful with this in thickening up my liquid soaps by blending in shea butter, salt & fine brown sugar. Per 1 c… start with 1/2tsp of brown sugar& salt…1 level tsp shea until it blends thick. Add more hydrolsol or castile if its too thick. LOVE YOUR SITE!!!

Thank you so much, I love this! I just made mine, so it’s still watery, but I love it anyway. Question: could you use twice as many bars if you use Castile soap, for a thicker soap? Do you do something like this for dish soap? What eos do you use?

I had some soap that didn’t harden as usual so I used your liquid soap recipe with the bars. It has been several weeks since I made it. It has been sitting in my cool basement. The soap is still very liquid. I think it will probably work with a foaming dispenser but wondered if there was anything I could do to thicken it. The bars of soap were made with goats milk, olive oil, coconut oil and palm oil.

You said didn’t harden, “as usual”. I’m not sure what you are using so it’s hard to advise you. You can try adding a half bar or full bar of shredded soap, depending on the size batch that you’ve made.

Hi Kelly,
The batch of soap I made was with goats milk, pomace olive oil coconut oil and palm oil. I had to leave it several days longer than usual to unfold because it was too soft. It finally did harden but is still a softer bar than usual. I shredded these bars as your recipe suggest but that solution is still pretty runny. You say not to use a castile soap bar but I’m not sure what makes a castile soap. I’d like the liquid soap to be a bit thicker. Any tips?